September, 2016

• 21 September

  Denmark eyes looming skills shortage as economy picks up

  

    Copenhagen / AFP After a lacklustre recovery from the 2008 financial crisis, Denmark’s central bank has warned that the labour market faces a squeeze as unemployment falls, the population ages and young people shun vocational jobs. At Technical Education Copenhagen, traineeships for another 20 to 30 lorry drivers could probably have been found if only people were interested in ...

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• 21 September

  Deepen Charleston’s port, and the big ships will come

  

    Technology has put powerful computers in billions of pockets, but an invention much more mundane than the smartphone — the shipping container: a rectangular steel box — also has changed the world. Because of it, two of today’s preoccupations — infrastructure and globalization — are connected by a chain of events that began more than 60 years ago and ...

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• 21 September

  Poll debacles won’t deter brave Merkel

  

    Many people seem to expect Chancellor Angela Merkel to apologize. Her party, the Christian Democratic Union, keeps underperforming in regional elections. Most recently, the CDU took a drubbing in parliamentary elections in Berlin on Sept. 18. The reason: the backlash against the kindness Merkel showed toward refugees last year. There have been five defeats this year, in every state ...

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• 21 September

  Don’t kill the driverless revolution with regulation

    In publishing new guidelines for automated vehicles this week, the U.S. Transportation Department tacitly acknowledged two important truths: This technology will probably be great. And no one knows what will happen. The regulators took a restrained approach, offering a safety checklist for manufacturers and better guidance for state officials but stopping short of issuing restrictive new rules. That’s prudent: ...

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• 21 September

  Mellowed BoJ adopts prudent flexibility

    Bank of Japan (BoJ) comprehensively reviewed the sustainability of a series of daring policy decisions that it had taken since January at its meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday. The mellowed central bank weighed the effectiveness of these decisions and unveiled a massive overhaul of monetary policy. The latest steps to commit itself to stoking inflation over the longer term ...

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• 21 September

  Making ‘Africa Rising’ a reality in Nigeria

  

    Until a few years ago, Africa Rising was a dominant theme in conversations about the global economy. That enthusiasm has since cooled, so that in newsrooms and think tanks and conference panels, “Africa Rising!” has given way to a more questioning “Africa Rising?” While some of that pessimism may be justified, we do not have the luxury of distracting ...

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• 21 September

  Official nudging works. Now, do more with it

    Last Wednesday was a historic day for behavioral science. The White House released the annual report of its Social and Behavioral Sciences Team. The U.K.’s Behavioural Insights Team released its own annual report on the same day. With the recent creation of similar teams in Australia, Germany, the Netherlands and Qatar, the two reports deserve careful attention. Outlining dozens ...

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• 21 September

  Preparing for North Korea’s inevitable collapse

  

    Let’s be honest. The world would be a better place if a revolutionary tribunal in the near future sent North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and his henchmen to the gallows. Kim’s subjects are so malnourished that North Koreans are notably shorter than their South Korean cousins. The state’s gulags are so large, you can see them from space. Survivors of ...

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• 21 September

  India to ink €8bn Rafale jet deal

  

    Bloomberg An India ministerial panel is said to have approved the purchase of 36 new fighter jets made by France’s Dassault Aviation SA, concluding a major step in its decade-long quest to modernize the country’s air force. The Cabinet Committee on Security, which includes the prime minister, defense, foreign and finance ministers, has cleared the deal worth 8 billion ...

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• 21 September

  Jet2 targets Ryanair stronghold with 6 Boeing 737s at Stansted

  

    Bloomberg British discount airline Jet2 will station six new Boeing Co. 737-800 jetliners at London Stansted airport, opening its first base outside the northern U.K. and taking on Ryanair Holdings Plc in its own backyard. The move will see Jet2 serve 21 European leisure destinations, with the first flights commencing March 30, putting it on a par with EasyJet ...

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